Optical fiber is increasingly being used for a variety of applications, including but not limited to broadband voice, video, and data transmission. As consumer devices increasingly use more bandwidth, it is anticipated that connectors for these devices will move away from electrical connectors and toward using optical connections. or a combination of electrical and optical connections to meet the bandwidth needs.
Generally speaking, conventional fiber optic connectors used for telecommunication networks and the like are not suitable for consumer electronics devices. For instance, conventional fiber optic connectors are relatively large when compared with the consumer devices and their interfaces. Additionally, conventional fiber optic connectors need to be deployed with great care and into relatively clean environments, and generally need to be cleaned by the craft prior to connection. Such fiber optic connectors are high-precision connectors designed for reducing insertion loss between mating connectors in the optical network. Further, though fiber optic connectors are reconfigurable (i.e., suitable for mating/unmating), they are not intended for the relatively large number of mating cycles normally associated with consumer electronic devices.
Besides operating with a relatively large number of mating/unmating cycles, consumer electronic devices are often used in environments where dust, dirt, debris, liquid and the like are ubiquitous. Consequently, fiber optic connectors used for commercial electronic devices must be designed so that dust, dirt, debris, etc., cannot readily make its way into the optical pathways between the plug and the receiver parts of the connector. Further, consumer electronic devices typically have size and space constraints for making connections and may not be amenable to straight optical pathways for the fiber optic connector. Moreover, such size and space constraints may limit the ability of the fiber optic connector to have an expanded-beam optical pathway. Such optical pathways are needed when coupling light from a divergent light source or optical fiber to a downstream photodetector, or when coupling light into an optical fiber from an upstream light source.